The "hell no you can't" angry white guy is of course, Republican representative John Boehner, from an outburst during the healthcare vote last week. I'll be very pleased when the Republican party ceases being the party of angry white bigots. In any case, while I often think he's far too centrist, NYT columnest Frank Rich I think sums up the issues involved perfectly in his piece on the current right-wing rage, which includes the following quote:

Comments:

I'll be very pleased when the Republican party ceases being the party of angry white bigots.

I have a grim feeling that that may never happen - because the tarnish on the brand may become so strong that it's impossible to call oneself a "Republican" without being instantly pigeonholed as someone not susceptible to evidence. So a certain political persuasion may need a different word for itself - and may need to take the difficult step of jettisoning the "Republican" brand despite its perceived value. It is pleasant to imagine this as part of America growing up out of the short-sighted and limiting two-party system, in which case a political persuasion like yours and mine might think a similar thing about the "Democrat" brand.

I doubt the two party system will go away quite so easily. My guess is a gradual (or perhaps swift - if we're lucky indeed) dwindling of the Republican Party to a party with purely regional influence for the next 10-15 years, followed by a revival, where they jettison the remaining bigots (who by that time will be even more of an anachronism than they are already), and become something else.

With luck the something else will have nothing to do with either fundamentalist Christianity (likely, since it's also gradually fading away as young people fail to follow their parent's vile faiths) or libertarianism (which I sincerely hope collapses under the weight of its own greed-ridden idiocy), and will be some other path. Of course, this will then inspire change among the Democrats, and so the result, like has happened before several times a century for the last 150 or so years will be two effectively new parties with the same names. As with everything else, there's a lot of value in an existing political Brand.

I think it's almost inevitible for things to get a little better, by and by. While the Republicans smell blood in the water right now, I suspect that at least one or two candidates are going to drink a little too much tea during the primary and lose the general election. Over the next five years, the party will probably soften, and as it does, even the hardcore types will have to tone it down in order to stay on party messge. In the meantime... well, even lynch artists get nostalgic, I suppose.